White: A Captain's Colours, Pt III
by StJost
Summary: Anna straightened, clenching and unclenching her fists in the cold. The intruders lay still in the dark, their faces covered mercifully with light cloths. Now that the most unpleasant of the business was behind them, the scrubbing could begin. Thinking balefully of the blood-spattered kitchen, she sighed as she and Cicero took up a pair of oak buckets and headed for the well.
1. Powder

A sequel to 'Red', we selfishly enjoy the mixed feelings Anna must endure while considering Simcoe's willingness to defend her.

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Anna gave another pump and clear, crisp water gushed from the well's spigot. Cicero rubbed his hands together in the surge, scrubbing at his small palms. She could see the water coming away salmon-colored in the dim light of the candle that sat on the stump and looked down to her own hands. Dark stains covered her delicate fingers and seeped under her nails. As she ran her palms across one another, she could feel the stickiness of the blood tacking her fingertips together. Shivering in the coldness of the night, she tugged at the painfully cold handle again and a fresh gout splashed out; Cicero's hands were coming clean, but she noted the blotches on the front of his coat. Looking down, it was even easier to see the blemishes, black in the night, on her stark sleep clothes, visible under her dark woolen cloak. They would all have to be salted until she again awoke in several hours, when the scrubbing could begin. Sighing with exhaustion, her breath puffed in fleeting clouds in the winter air, curling delicately around the petite snowflakes. They scarcely landed, resting gently on her pale skin just long enough to be noticed. Anna brushed a particularly large specimen out of her eyelashes. She traded places with Cicero and he tugged at the handle, a cold stream rushing forth. Her skin prickled as she thrust her hands under the spout, scouring quickly as she could.

"What're we gonna do with them?" She looked up to see Cicero's gaze lingering on the still, shadowy shapes that lay in the dead grass near the barn. Returning her attention to her palms, she paid special mind to the stains between her fingers.

"Tomorrow, we'll tell the major what happened," she explained, motioning for another spray from the spigot; he obliged. "I imagine he'll send a cart and some men and that'll be the end of that. 'Tisn't our problem." Cicero nodded, eyes lingering on the dead men. Anna shook the water from her cleaned hands, wiping them dry on her cloak. Concern was still evident in the boy's face. She found herself missing Abigail's company in times like these; the woman had a far greater talent for reassurance than Anna, particularly for her own son. She took the youth by his shoulders.

"Don't you trouble yourself with them. The Strong house is still a safe one. We've God watching over us and he'll protect us." Cicero nodded and Anna was hopeful that her words rang true; she hardly felt herself fit to be reassuring others when she couldn't find much confidence in her own words. Seizing one of the buckets on the frozen ground, Anna hooked it on the spigot and Cicero pumped water until it was full.

"Maybe that's why the captain's here." Anna paused, her hands resting on the oaken edge of the vessel as the water lapped at its walls. The trickle at the tap petered to a quick drip, sending ripples through the surface of the pail.

"What d'you mean?" she asked. Cicero shrugged, careful to keep his eyes on the iron handle in his dark hands.

"Maybe he sent the captain to protect us," the boy murmured, "Since Mister's gone." Anna stiffened at the mention of her husband. She could understand how Cicero might assume that the former followed the latter, but she hadn't decided yet if the redcoat had a direct hand in Selah's imprisonment, and consequently his death. Perhaps he was simply taking advantage of it. She didn't feel it mattered; he didn't belong. It was he and his soldiers bringing the war home with them, along with the good men accused of deeds they had no such hand in and the profiteers that tried to take advantage of the chaos.

She cast a glance to the still shapes in the barn's shadow and her anger faltered. Whether or not she would admit it, Cicero had a point. Simcoe had protected them this time. If it happened again, she had no doubt he'd again risk life and limb to safeguard them. Had it not been for the clamor caused by the scuffle downstairs, Anna likely would never have woken, and the thieves would have made off with a great many of the House Strong's valuables. As if it weren't bad enough that she hardly owned the property anymore, she thought ruefully. Still, had the men less than honorable motives…

"Maybe he did," she nodded rigidly as she recalled jolting awake to the sound of a shot fired, having heard no ruckus before it. The men might have been upon her room before she'd even stirred. Simcoe, though, was a dog of war, trained to rouse at the quietest disturbance. No trespasser would make it past his door unaccosted, let alone to her own. There was a certain amount of solace she allowed herself to take in that. Offering Cicero a disingenuous smile, she turned her attention back to the bucket swaying gently at the tap. "Let's get these inside and we can show him our thanks with clean water for bathin'."

Heaving the filled bucket away, she replaced it with its twin, which was filled in kind. Each of them took one up by its wooden handle and she retrieved the candleholder, the brass chilled by the frigid air. Setting off for the relative warmth of the house, their shoes crunched in the frosty remnants of the lawn and the candle's flame sputtered out in the wind.

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While writing this installment, I must confess that I required more words to share it with you than I anticipated. As such, it will be separated into three chapters. I hope you enjoy each more than the last!


	2. Linen

Here we go with chapter two! I apologize for the absolutely inexcusable lack of Simcoe so far; I promise you, he'll return! In the meantime, please enjoy some Anna-angst.

Thank you to RubinChan for the review! I swear he's on his way, RC.

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Anna stared at the mess in her kitchen. In her years of living here, never had it looked so disastrous. There were scattered shards of the fine, white china strewn under the table. Silverware covered the floor, and there was a small heap of it on a chair; she'd dumped it there as she discovered it in the young man's coat while they removed him. A bloodied piece of cast iron lay on the floor in one of the many smears of red. It would have to be cleaned thoroughly and reseasoned, a task she hadn't needed done since she'd owned it. Now there were splatters of thick gore on the inside and tiny, pale fragments of what looked like bone. Leading away into the darkness of the great room was a line of dried drops, shining carmine in the relit fire. Sighing, she ran a hand through her dark curls.

"Cicero, please find a basket for the silverware and iron," she instructed, paring down the ruin into manageable portions, "Leave it by the door and we'll meddle with it after this mess is dealt with. Then fill the laundry tub with cold brine." Anna plucked the captain's nightshirt from the chair, the bright linen marred with crimson. There was a wide gap in the fabric, the edges cut cleanly. Repair wouldn't be difficult as long as they were gentle while it was scrubbed. She draped the garment on the back of a chair and followed it with her cloak; the red spots along its front were more visible in the light of the hearth. "Get this soakin', along with your jacket." She heaved the bucket onto the table and left Cicero to begin his work. Eyes drifting down to the floor followed the trail of blood as she took a candle and headed for the great room.

The damage here was not nearly so severe. The pathway of blood stopped just a few inches onto the large rug and completely missed the smaller runners. Another knife had been discarded near the doorframe, but this was not one of her own. In place of the silvered handle, it was a heavy, pitted piece of steel wrapped in dark wood. The cutting edge was a sliver of scarlet. Not far away lay a royal captain's pistol, tucked just under a side table. It didn't appear as though any of the furniture fell victim to the violence, although Anna did eye with a note of sourness the splintered panel in the wall, and the rain of fragmented pine on the floor below. She was certain if she examined the hole more closely, she would find a musket ball planted in the side of the house. But that would have to wait until tomorrow, she reminded herself.

Stepping quietly to the chest, she sat the candle on the lid and pulled a low drawer open. From here, she retrieved a small pair of cotton towels and a tightly folded nightshirt. Tucking the towels under her arm, she hooked the shirt at the shoulders and let it unfold in front of her. The smooth, crisp linen billowed slightly at her knees. Clearly too large for her own petite frame, it belonged to Selah. She chided herself with a frown; it _had_ belonged to him. With knowledge that he would not be returning to their home, there was no sense in holding his base belongings as keepsakes. It was with this notion that Anna rationalized giving the nightshirt to Simcoe now, suppressing the pang of disloyal guilt it inspired.

Though in the chest the captain was broader than Selah had been, it was chance that they differed little in stature. Raising her hands to eye level, she could imagine either man's shoulder at the height. Standing closely, she would have to crane to look either in the face, although she hadn't shared so much closeness with her husband in what seemed an eternity. It was another account entirely when she thought instead of the captain to whom she was forced to open her home. John Graves Simcoe made a habit of standing far closer than Anna was certain was permitted. He seemingly found her in an endless supply of secluded moments, never crossing the line into ungentlemanly territory, but with an ever-present undercurrent of determination; she'd never dealt with anyone who pursued his interest with such fervor and blindness. Surely this quality was a useful asset on the battlefield, but when the man stood naught but a few inches from her and directed his attention to nothing but her own, her stare would falter and she would resort to distracting him from his pursuit best that she could.

For all his resolve, though, it took only a few words of her own approval to suit him. It was in these moments that she thought she glimpsed what he looked like underneath the lunacy. The bravado stripped away, he would smile a small smile and leave her be for just a little longer, like a child requesting a single sweet. Many of their encounters had ended in this manner, though it had been some weeks since he had approached her. The last time she'd been within arm's length of him had been at the duel before she and Mr. Culper escaped to New York. She and the magistrate had both heard the _boom_ of Abe's pistol, and with his shot squandered, there was little stopping Simcoe from shooting him dead. He was far more skilled with firearms than Abraham and well aware of it; had Anna not entreated the captain to stay his weapon, she was sure that the farmer would have been mortally wounded. And yet, stay he did. Close as she was, she could almost feel the heat in Simcoe's eyes dissipate when she called him by his Christian name, certain it was a sound to which he had become unaccustomed. In that moment, she saw a flicker of something recognizable within him, as though he needed simple reminding that there dwelled a person under the white waistcoat. His expression bloomed with confusion muddled with his rage at Abe and his desire to avenge her. Above him, black branches spidered across the blinding sky, silhouetting him in wintry bleakness. By comparison, he appeared full of warmth with cheeks pink in the cold and the uncomfortable luster of his eyes tempered into a calm cerulean by the shadow of his brow. For what Anna was sure was the first time, Simcoe was just another man. A soldier yet, but not without a modicum of compassion and reason; she could see each quite plainly in the slim lines of his face and feel it in the rise and fall of his chest under her hand. For as near as he often loomed toward her, it was she who closed the distance with lithe fingers brushing against silken buttons and whispers of fate. Anna stood close enough that she could have lifted her hands and entwined her fingers behind his neck.

She dropped the nightshirt very suddenly and snapped the drawer shut. Brow knitted, she rebuked her own thoughts. Simcoe was not just another man. He was a cruel combatant and a stranger in her home. He was hardly better than the two gentlemen they'd removed from her kitchen, she thought scornfully as she bundled the fabrics under her arm and fled the darkness of the great room. The flame of the candle bobbed in front of her as she could feel the heat flood into her cheeks. Stepping back into the light of the kitchen, Cicero crouched near the table, gathering silverware into a wicker basket and sweeping the broken plates into a jagged pile.

Without Simcoe, there would be no mess. The men would have purloined their good plates and silverware and whatever other valuables they could scrounge up, and they would have been on their way. There would be no blood covering the kitchen floorboards. There would be no laundry in need of soaking. There would be no heaving bodies out into the cold. Anna's glower faltered somewhat as it landed on the bloody nightshirt on the chair, but she didn't allow it to linger. Setting the towels and clean shirt on the table, she retrieved a heavy porcelain pitcher and basin from the dish cupboard, bringing it to the worn work surface. She tipped the bucket above cool, white depths and soon the pitcher was filled. She would not deny him his cleanliness, but he would receive nothing else for dispatching the trespassers. Tucking the cloth into the side of the basin, she headed for the stairs, making sure not to meet Cicero's eyes as they followed.

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I hope you're excited for a great deal more colonial propriety, because chapter three will likely be full of it. Hope you enjoyed!


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